


Say Something; Do Something

by m_class



Series: 2x10 and onwards fix-it fics [1]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Humor, Fix-It, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Psychological Trauma, Season 2 Episode 10 "The Red Angel", Spoilers, Torture, and some, courtesy Mirror Georgiou, hand-holding, on that note, suffocation, the 'graphic depictions of violence' tag is just for what happens in the canon episode, which I'm tagging to be on the safe side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18243761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: “Doctor.”He turns. Reno is standing in the hallway, watching him.“Make the call. Say something. This needs to be stopped.”In a situation careening toward atrocity, Hugh Culber, Jett Reno, Tracy Pollard, Ash Tyler, and Mirror Georgiou's efforts come together, even imperfectly, to save Michael Burnham before her life is changed in a way that cannot be repaired.





	Say Something; Do Something

**Author's Note:**

> *this fic contains major spoilers for 2x10 “The Red Angel”*
> 
> \- This was extremely minimally edited due to a tight schedule (sighs @ real life), not to mention a fandom comment/reply backlog I didn’t want to put off to dive into a longer fic, but Michael’s death scene was horrible and I wanted to write something. I might expand it at some point (I’d also like to write a take on it within my Georgiou Lives AU, but decided to go canon-compliant-except-for-the-fix-it for now), especially if the show doesn’t address the horror of what happened well (or at all).
> 
> \- I AM still hoping that the show is trying to make a point about trauma with a twist that will subvert the strong black woman trope/all the egregious trauma heaped on Michael, but whether they do that or not, showing Michael’s painful death scene is gross and voyeuristic, and the writing showing most of the main cast agree to torture and potentially kill her felt incredibly OOC--it’s going to be hard for me to sympathize with them in any way except for a “headcanon that that bad writing didn’t happen” way now, honestly, unless (and even if) the show deals with their complicity REALLY well, and there are realizations and ramifications and horrified apologies.
> 
> \- Hugh a) was one of the few characters who spoke against Lorca’s authoritarianism in Season 1 and b) knows personally just how traumatic even “temporary” death can be, ffs, which made his going along with this on the show feel particularly frustrating to me (and made writing him even temporarily going along with it in this story feel OOC), and which is why I chose him to be the pivot point of this fic. Meanwhile, since they weren’t in the episode/on the bridge, Jett and Tracy are innocent until proven guilty in my book.
> 
> \- nomisunrider wrote [ an amazing 2x10 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18225665) that you should check out if you are into Tracy being a principled Starfleet physician (or even if you’re not, because it’s amazing).

Jett Reno is leaning against the wall beside the doors of sickbay when Hugh rounds the corner from the turbolift.

“This plan is a horror show,” she says, without preamble, “and you need to say something.”

Hugh swallows, feeling the weight that has settled onto his shoulders since he received his orders clenching more tightly around him. “I don’t like the plan, Commander,” he tells her in a low voice. “I don’t think any of us do. And I registered my concerns with the captain. But it’s been agreed upon by the senior staff, including both the captain and an admiral. They’ve signed off on the risk.”

Reno shakes her head. Her body language is tense and angry, her eyes glinting with anger and a stunned, bitter kind of fear. “The risk? The risk of a Starfleet officer dying painfully while other options exist? This isn’t some down-to-the-wire nonsense. We have _time_ to come up with another plan. We are Starfleet officers, whatever the hell that means these days. Hell, I’m an engineer; you and Dr. Pollard are physicians,” she adds, with a sweeping gesture from herself to Hugh to sickbay. “Our professions have codes of conduct, none of which include risking the life of a colleague while manifold other options exist. There are options. There are choices. We need to find those choices.”

Hugh meets her eyes. “Why are you bringing this to me instead of the captain?”

Reno’s mouth twists in a broken imitation of a grin. “Tried the nice words. Didn’t work. Tried the not so nice words. Got relieved of duty. Came here to see if my nice words and your Hippocratic oaths would be enough for you and Dr. Pollard to throw a spanner into this shitshow before it gets off the ground.” She regards him for a moment as he takes a breath, staring at her. There is a terrible weariness in her eyes, suddenly. “I don’t consider myself a rebel, Doctor. I keep my head down and I do my work. But I fought to keep crewmates alive for months. My Starfleet crewmates. Good people who deserved better. Now--?!” She shakes her head, her eyes boring into Hugh’s. “Now we send a good Starfleet crewmate to a painful death?”

It is a few moments before Hugh can marshall the words to respond. “I share your concerns, Commander.” Does he share the level of her concern? The emergency pitch of Reno’s fears; her willingness to throw her career on the line to stop this danger to a colleague she barely knows? Hugh can feel the horrified unease he has felt since he first reieved his orders growing slightly as his internal alert level rises in an automatic response to his colleague’s alarm. “I need to prepare for the mission,” he says quietly. “But I won’t forget what you’ve said.”

Reno searches his face; gives a jerky nod before turning on her heel and hurrying down the hallway. Hugh is about to step through the sickbay doors when her voice catches him.

“Doctor.”

He turns. Reno is standing in the hallway, watching him.

“Make the call. Say something. This needs to be stopped.”

***

“I take it you spoke with Reno?” Tracy asks as Hugh steps into sickbay, not looking up from her work. She is laying out trays of instruments, already in full emergency prep mode.

“She talked to you, too?”

Tracy nods, checking the power source on a regenerator and setting it next to an array of hyposprays with a click.

Hugh crosses to the cabinets to Tracy’s left, beginning to load a full portable medical kit. “I don’t like this either,” he tells her, “and I told Pike and Burnham so. It’s an unnecessary risk. But at a time like this, with the galaxy in danger...if Burnham is consenting to this...procedure...I can understand why they’re willing to take the chance, if it will get Starfleet closer to solving this.” He shakes his head, Reno’s words parading through his mind. _Came here to see if my nice words and your Hippocratic oaths would be enough for you and Dr. Pollard to throw a spanner into this shitshow before it gets off the ground._

“‘Unnecessary risk?’” Tracy pauses in her work, straightening and looking Hugh in the eye. Her voice is quiet and deadly serious. “Hugh. This is the torture and mutilation of a Starfleet officer. Do you--you _do_ . You _do_ know that that’s what this is. You know what the atmosphere on that planet is going to do to human lungs and human skin. Burnham is going to be strapped to a chair and tortured. Not _possibly_ injured, not _incidentally_ injured. Her injury _is_ the plan.”

“So you agree with Reno.”

“I agree that this plan needs to be stopped. I’d like to think it’s not just Reno and I who know that.” In Tracy’s low, unerringly steady voice is a restrained rage Hugh has heard from her only twice before, both times during the war. The second time was when they talked about what Lorca had done to Paul. The first time was after treating prisoners rescued from the Klingons. He had thought, somehow, that now that the war was over, he wasn’t likely to hear that voice again.

“The ACE study?” she continues. “The last few centuries of research on trauma? The last few millennia of medical research? Hugh, interpersonal trauma...you know as well as I know that any textbook will tell you that the most traumatic events are the ones where people are harmed or abandoned by the people they trust. What will it do to Burnham, to have her crew strap have her into a chair and torture her to death—because it is; it is torture—just because she gave what no reasonable person would define as informed consent?”

Hugh shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know,” he says roughly. “I know.”

“And what about the physical injuries? We might be able to wave a few instruments over her burns thanks to the miracles of modern technology, but at the cellular level, injuries...the energy the body puts into recovery...that damage doesn’t just go away. Maybe she’s back on duty tomorrow. But what does the physical trauma do to her in ten years? What does the psychological trauma do to her in twenty?” Tracy returns to her work, methodically checking the dosages on the hyposprays. Her hands are as steady as they have been during every other emergency she and Hugh have weathered together. ( _Emergency,_ Hugh thinks. _I’m thinking of this...situation...our attempts to avert this situation...as an emergency, even though sickbay is still._ )

“Unfortunately,” Tracy says quietly, voice tight with what Hugh can only describe as a mixture of pain and shame and conviction, “unlike Reno, I don’t have the luxury of throwing a tantrum up the chain of command. I might have authority over the captain over medical matters in theory, but we’re floating out here a long way from Starfleet, and if he--if they all--decide to override me and _note my objection in their logs_ \--” Her voice rises to a new level of bitterness. “I’m likely relieved of duty, and I can’t afford that risk to Burnham’s safety. I am the most experienced physician on this ship, and they’re already sending us hurtling headlong into this mission. My only ethical choice is to work within this plan.” She pauses again, stepping forward to meet Hugh’s eyes. “You, Hugh. You’ve going down there. You have the chance to intervene. Pack your kit, go down, say Burnham is suffering from post-traumatic stress and can’t medically consent. It’s true. Check her vitals and say her heartrate is elevated. It will be.” Her voice wavers, just slightly, rage and horror making its way into her even tone as she gazes into Hugh’s eyes. “Please, Hugh. _Do something._ ”

***

“Get the oxygen,” Georgiou orders as Burnham screams and chokes for air, and Hugh’s thoughts are crystal clear, already in medical emergency mode, focused only on what the first steps of treatment will be until, abruptly, he is looking at the business end of a phaser. It takes him a fraction of a second to even register what is happening, Spock’s words pouring against his eardrums as Burnham’s weakening screams pierce the air. Patient, brother, phaser, life, death, emergency.

Emergency. Because it is an emergency, now. Was the whole time, from the moment he received his horrifying orders. And he, the medical professional, the first responder, did not respond.

Reno’s words, Tracy’s words, echo in his ears. _Say something. Do something._

_And I didn’t._

Georgiou is still, watching Spock, and Hugh can see Paul out of the corner of his eye, frozen in place just behind them.

 _So do something now,_ says another voice deep inside him, his own voice, _his,_ and he turns to meet Georgiou’s eyes, his brain working at warp speed, knowing he has one shot at connecting to someone who he has nothing—nothing—in common with aside from caring about Burnham. “We have no reason to allow this,” he says, and moves before even waiting to see her reaction, stepping toward Spock. But then the former emperor does move, her hand flashing faster than lightning to knock the phaser from Spock’s hand, one shot going wild before the phaser is on the ground and so is Spock, his legs kicked out from under him. Hugh is running, bursting through the door and sprinting through air that burns his face on contact, the sound of the shutters opening— _thank you, Paul_ —and the sound of Burnham’s coughing the only noises to pierce his awareness. Dropping the kit and clicking it open, he lifts out the oxygen mask. Burnham is choking and coughing, her head turning back and forth as she writhes weakly in the chair, and Hugh presses the mask to her face with one hand while he gently holds her head steady with the other, glancing down to check that oxygen is dispensing. Burnham’s eyes are glazed with pain and oxygen deprivation, her body shuddering as she chokes and gasps into the mask, but at least now what she’s inhaling between coughs is breathable air.

“It’s okay, Michael,” he tells her, keeping his voice steady as he straps the oxygen mask into place, freeing his hands to adjust the controls. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

There is a presence beside him now, someone running up from behind him and beginning to unstrap Burnham’s wrists from her bonds. Seeing the motion out of the corner of his eye, he had assumed it was Georgiou, but when he glances to the side, it’s Ash Tyler, of all fucking people, who is untying Burnham and taking her hand, cradling it in his.

“You’re gonna be okay, Michael,” Tyler says, then turns to meet Hugh’s eyes as Georgiou jogs up to them. “What can I do to help?” he asks.

Burnham’s coughing is finally quieting, replacing by painful, wheezing breaths. Georgiou fishes a medical tricorder out of the kit and scans her. The angle and speed of the motion are exactly right; Hugh is reminded of a half-forgotten piece of knowledge, something Burnham must have mentioned to him, that Georgiou’s counterpart in this universe began her Starfleet career as a field medic. He wonders if this Georgiou, however incongruously, did the same.

“Her airway is swelling shut,” Georgiou says, her words sharp with concern. “We need to get her to the ship.”

Hugh nods at Tyler. “Stay here with Spock and Paul,” he directs, and the other man wheels, jogging back towards the entrance.

Pulling his communicator from his jacket, Hugh flips it open. “Culber to Discovery; three to beam directly to sickbay.”

As the light of the transporter shimmers around them, Hugh stares at Michael’s face, her eyes half-lidded as she struggles to breathe.

_What have we done?_

***

Sickbay is quiet, the only sounds the background hum of machinery and lights and the soft whirr of the dermal regenerator as Tracy carefully finishes healing the burns to Michael’s skin, the curtains around her bed drawn for privacy. Hugh pushes the code for a rehydration hypospray into the synthesizer, then sags just slightly for a moment, left with nothing to do for the first time in an hour and a half but wait for Tracy to call him back in.

The words echo in his head again.

_What have we done?_

Hugh can still remember the frozen silence that settled over the ship during Lorca’s time on the Discovery, the methodical cruelty of his careful authoritarianism wrapping around so much of the crew. Stifling them.

Hugh knows that he was one of the only ones to file reports on their captain’s behavior. It is a knowledge he is willing to live with. Starfleet, belatedly, has increased its training on coercive behavior in the wake the war, and it is difficult for anyone to stand up to a behavior they had little chance of anticipating or understanding.

Now Starfleet is changing. Starfleet is getting better.

At least, that is what Hugh has been telling himself.

But now…

He closes his eyes.

This time, there was no Lorca. This time, it was only them.

This crew. His crew. Burnham’s crew. Sending her to torture and death, willingly, consciously, because—

Because of what?

Because of too many things, Hugh thinks, to name in one breath. But they will have to name them, because everything is different, now, whether the people outside the doors of sickbay are acknowledging that yet or not.

Because they did not value Commander Burnham’s safety.

Because they put the choice that was easy above the choice that was right.

Because he, Hugh, somehow felt prey, after all these years, to the denial that he was one of the few to escape during Lorca’s tenure. To the frozen inaction that, over the course of millennia, have claimed so many people in times of crisis and injustice. To the belief that if it’s really an emergency, then someone else will say something; do something.

Hugh opens his eyes, straightening his shoulders at the sound of Georgiou’s voice behind him. Georgiou has been lurking at the door to sickbay for the hour and a half it took Hugh and Tracy to treat Burnham; focused on saving Burnham’s life, Hugh left her to whatever she was doing. It sounded as though it consisted mostly of sending people away, along with a brief conference with Nhan about Spock, whose continued non-presence in sickbay points reassuringly towards...Georgiou...or rather, the woman who Hugh and Tracy refer to amongst themselves as “the woman who cannot possibly be Captain Georgiou”...having restrained herself from using excessive force while knocking him on his ass.

Now, it’s Tyler in the doorway, and Hugh sees Georgiou stand aside to let him in. He’s barely thought about the man’s presence on the planet; to have arrived when he did, it seems probable that Tyler was giving himself an unauthorized beam-down even before reports of Spock pulling a gun on the rest of the away team met his ears. Hugh doesn’t know how to feel about that—his emotions toward the man are complicated, and he’s giving himself the gift on not rushing to uncomplicate them.

Hugh glances towards Tyler, then towards, Burnham’s bed, then toward the sickbay doors. Toward whatever is going on in ship beyond their quiet terrarium that is sickbay.

Ash Tyler saw Michael Burnham choking to death while screaming, and he decided to intervene, fractions of a second before Hugh did. And for Burnham’s sake—for Starfleet’s sake, whatever tatters are left of it, now—Hugh is sweepingly, terribly glad of that.

Tyler gives Hugh the same tight, pained nod that he has been giving him whenever their paths cross and he can’t avoid Hugh’s eyes. “Is she still—uh—”

“Still in treatment,” Hugh says, giving him a slight nod in return. “It will take some time for her respiratory system to fully heal, but the swelling is under control, and Dr. Pollard is healing the last of her external burns now.”

“Good,” Tyler says, pinching his lips together in a tight, grimacing smile, twisting his hands together, and letting them fall again. “That’s, uh—that’s really good.”

Hugh nods. “You did the right thing,” he finds himself saying. “Beaming down to the planet. I only wish you—and I—did something earlier,” he finishes quietly. Here, in the silence of sickbay, it seems natural, somehow, to tell Tyler this, the words that Hugh needs to give voice to finding their recipient in one of the only other people who, in this moment, might fully understand.

“I—” Tyler glances back toward Georgiou, who is watching them quietly, her expression unreadable. Hugh wonders if listening to a discussion silently and without saying anything horrible is the closest the former Terran emperor gets to participating politely in a conversation. “She was dying,” Tyler manages at last, his voice rough. “She was dying and we—and we—we’d—”

Hugh nods.

“And then I just ran,” Tyler finishes. “I ran to the transporter room, and all I was thinking of was what someone told me—” He swallows. “Told Ash Tyler, once,” he corrects himself, “back at Starfleet Academy. I had an emergency medical instructor who told us, ‘If you intervene in a crisis, you might be ineffective, and you might make things worse. But if you’re going to be alive in the world, much less serving in Starfleet, you must do two things. You must know that your actions might be ineffective or damaging, and you must be willing to weigh whether your best option is to act anyway.’”

Hugh nods. “Yes,” he says simply.

The three of them stand together in silence for a few minutes, Georgiou still giving them the gift of a lack of commentary, before Tracy pushes the curtains back on their rails. “We’re all set,” she says, a slight smile in her voice.

Behind her, Burnham is awake and blinking on the bed. There is an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, but she is breathing steadily, and her eyes are tracking clearly.

Tyler steps toward her, moving to the  side of the bed to take Burnham’s left hand, the hand of the arm without IVs. Burnham’s slightly dazed eyes fill with tears, and she tugs him toward her, eyes beseeching. Tyler glances at Tracy for permission. She nods, and he kicks his boots off, crawling carefully onto the narrow bed next to her.

Hugh lets them get settled before stepping forward to press the rehydration hypo against Burnham’s neck. “Do you need anything?” he asks her quietly.

She shakes her head.

“Dr. Pollard and I will both be right here,” he tells her quietly, and moves away from the bed, joining Tracy in the corner of sickbay as the former Emperor steps toward the other side of Michael’s bed, pulling up a chair beside it.

Safely ensconced next to the sinks, Tracy looks at Hugh, and he looks back at her.

Tracy glances toward the doorway, and finally speaks. “I don’t feel as bad as I might under other circumstances about having let the woman who we both know isn’t Captain Georgiou act as bouncer for a while.”

Hugh cracks a helpless grin. “No.”

There will be a reckoning for all of them, in the hours and days to come; there has to be. If there is still a Starfleet to face that reckoning after this battle for the future is done, it will be a reckoning for the entire organization, and whatever the hell they have, somehow, even after the war, let themselves become.

And it’s foolishness to vent anger to those outside the terrarium of sickbay, when everyone within it was nearly as complicit as those outside it.

But in this moment, he’s pretty certain that it is, in fact, a decent enough idea to give Burnham the gift of keeping that terrarium sealed for a little while.

“Now that I’m back on door duty,” Tracy says, her thoughts evidently having led her to a similar place. “I’ve been practicing my frostiest “’What can I help you with?’”

Hugh grins again, wondering how, despite the way the galaxy has shifted on its axis, being together and united with the colleague he’s spent the last year and a half coming to care for and trust still has the power give him hope for everything they must face next. “Sounds like a plan.”

***

“Why?”

Michael’s voice is a weak rasp, muffled slightly by the oxygen mask over her face, and Ash can almost physically feel his heart constrict with pain to hear it. He pushes that pain to the side; it’s Michael’s pain he needs to focus on now, and Michael’s pain only.

He does not pretend not to know what she is talking about; he does not want her to waste breath providing clarification when he already knows exactly what that one word is asking.

And in this moment, Ash Tyler, sometime Starfleet officer and sometime spy, half memory and half ghost and entirely real, finds that he knows exactly what he wants to say.

“Because you were in no shape to consent to give up your life,” he tells her softly. “Because we never should have done this to you. Because you are precious to us, and we will find an alternate plan.”

Michael shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. “I—could have done it,” she scratches out. “If I—if I hadn’t screamed—”

“We would have saved you whether you screamed or not,” Ash whispers fiercely. “We never should have gone through with this plan in the first place. None of what happened today is your fault, Michael. None of it. And I am just so—” He swallows, a fractional amount of relief warming his heart at how good it feels, despite the nightmare that is this situation, just to hear Michael Burnham speak. “So, _so_ glad that you’re going to be okay.”

Michael is shaking her head, the tears in her eyes spilling over to roll down her cheeks onto the pillow. “I failed,” she rasps.

Georgiou shakes her head. “You _lived_.”

Michael turns her head slightly on the pillow, gazing towards Georgiou. When she first sat down at Michael’s bedside, the former Emperor made a production of looking suspiciously in Tracy’s direction and loudly declaring that she didn’t trust the medics of Starfleet to do nearly as good a job putting in IVs as her handpicked medical staff on the Charon would have, then picking up Michael’s right arm to make a show of inspecting Tracy’s work.

She just didn’t happen to let go of Michael’s hand, afterwards.

Now, Michael’s fingers move weakly in Georgiou’s, gripping her hand as she stares into the other woman’s eyes and repeats a single word.

“Why?”

For a few moments, Georgiou is silent, gazing down at Michael. If he didn’t know better, Ash might think that she was trying to figure out what to say.

“I am the greatest warrior in my universe,” she finally begins. “My titles include Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Kronos, and Regina Andor, to signify the peoples crushed under the heel of the military forces I led. I am a master of multiple disciplines of hand-to-hand combat, an expert in weapons technology both modern and traditional, and a seasoned athlete; I have defeated the greatest martial artists in the ranks of my empire when we tested our strength against each other in honest unarmed combat. It has been said of me that I am the greatest warrior in the greatest empire in the galaxy not only in my own generation but also—”

“Is there a point buried somewhere in here, Philippa?” Michael whispers, a trace of her trademark wry sarcasm warming her weak voice, and Ash feels the relief in his heart grow another fraction at the familiar sound.

Georgiou looks back down to meet Michael’s eyes, her gaze seeming to grow harder and softer at once. “I am the greatest warrior of my universe,” she says, “and nonetheless, I would have feared to face my counterpart in combat, in any afterlife that may exist, had I let you join her there today.”

Michael stares at her for a moment, confusion, grief, and amusement warring for position in her exhausted eyes. “Philippa,” she says at last, “did you just tell me that you saved my life because you don’t want my Philippa to beat you up in the afterlife?”

Philippa blinks calmly at her, her expression entirely serious. “Quite. Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius, beaten in hand-to-hand combat by her milquetoasty counterpart from your… _Federation?”_ The word is a sneer. She shakes her head. “Michael. It would be a _humiliation._ ”

From her eyes and the curve of her cheeks above the oxygen mask, Ash can see that Michael is, incredibly, almost smiling. Moments later, however, the smile falls off her face all at once, pain gusting back into her eyes like shifting stormclouds.

“You’re...” She shakes her head slightly. “You’re wrong. She would…she…I…” She closes her eyes briefly before opening them again.

“You don’t have to tell us now,” Ash says gently. “We can always talk about this later--”

Michael cuts him off with a look, then turns her gaze back to Georgiou. “She sacrificed herself,” she says softly. “She sacrificed herself and I tried to stop her, and that was wrong, that was _wrong_ , and you...you all…” She glances from Georgiou to Ash back to the doctors, talking in their corner. “I risked my life and _you stopped me_. Like what I did to her. Mutiny. What I shouldn’t have done.”

Georgiou’s forehead furrows “You....” She tilts her head, as though computing internally. “You really think…”

Her eyes clear, and fill with what Ash might, in another human, have read as shock, perhaps bordering on horror. In this moment, her hair escaping her ponytail in whisps and her trademark coldness absent from her eyes, she almost resembles the woman Ash has seen in holos of the Captain Georgiou of this universe.

“I’ve read the file, Michael,” Georgiou says, “on the Battle of the Binary Stars. Your Philippa was the captain of a starship. When she made the choice not to fire on the Klingon warships, she was a trained professional making an informed decision on the job. She was not seeking the destruction of herself or her ship, but rather making a dangerous strategic decision guided by her own principles and the standing orders of the organization she served. She was physically and psychologically prepared for duty, or, at least, as psychologically prepared for duty as anyone in your morality-hampered universe can ever be,” she adds, with a token sneer.“And she agreed to being put in life-threatening situations just such as that. Agreed the day she signed up for your Starfleet.” She shakes her head slightly. “Michael, for these last three weeks, you have been enmeshed in a personal situation you could not choose any more than any of us can choose the personal disasters that find us. You never agreed to this. You have undergone a series of terrible events that have damaged you physically and psychologically. And then you agreed to a plan that, in its entirety, was meant to result in your injury and probable death. Your Philippa would not think you were following her example. Your Philippa would have been _horrified_. And--” Here Georgiou pauses, giving Ash a look that he’s pretty sure promises death and dismemberment if he even thinks about breathing a word of this conversation to, for example, Leland. “Although your Philippa would have been horrified by a great many things that no reasonable Terran would bat an eyelash at...I am horrified as well.” She glances at Ash again. “In this respect, my milquetoasty half-breed colleague is correct. None of us should have agreed to what was done to you.”

Michael blinks, pain and confusion and something that looks almost like hope swirling in her unreadable eyes.

“Even in my own universe,” Georgiou continues, “I would not let a valued colleague die painfully in the line of duty while _manifold_ other options existed. Well. Unless I wanted their job,” she adds, as an afterthought. “And your role in Starfleet seems so _boring_ and _thankless,_ Michael; I _much_ prefer mine.”

At this, Ash groans, and Michael’s face crinkles into a half-smile again, her eyelids fluttering.

“You can rest, if you’re tired, Michael,” Ash says gently. “Georgiou just said she doesn’t want your job, so she’s not going to let a damn thing happen to you. And I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

The sickbay doors whoosh open softly behind them, and Ash hears Dr. Pollard say, in a perfectly even tone, “What can I help you with?” Then, after another moment, “I’m sorry, Captain, she’s resting. You’ll have to come back later.”

Michael, who has stiffened slightly at the exchange, relaxes against the pillow again as the sickbay doors whoosh shut.

“We’ll figure things out later, Michael,” Ash says softly, as Georgiou rubs her thumb soothingly across Michael’s hand. “For now, just rest. We’re not going anywhere.”

Michael smiles slightly, and moments later, her breaths even into sleep.

***

Somewhere far away and yet not so very far at all, someone who has been paying very close attention to the events on the Discovery exhales roughly, the nausea she has been battling for the last few hours at last beginning to subside.

She is trembling slightly, she realizes, as she rolls her neck back and forth, unclenching her fists.

In her life, she has witnessed terrible things, but none of them have touched the stunned, abject horror she felt as she watched Michael’s friends--her family--strap her into a chair in an atmosphere that was about to burn the skin from her face and the air from her lungs.

But they stopped it.

At last, at least, they stopped it. At last, at least, they have gathered around her; told her, even imperfectly, that she matters, that she is loved, that she is theirs.

At last, at least, Michael did not suffer complete annihilation at the hands of the people who are meant to keep her safe.

Closing her eyes as a rough sob finally breaks from her throat, Michael’s mother sinks to the ground. She is shaking--pain, relief, rage.

Michael lived.

Her daughter has not been murdered. Tortured, yes, but she has not been killed, and some scraps of the fabric of the way the universe is supposed to be therefore remain intact.

Michael lived.

Everything has changed--for Michael, for the people gathered around her in Discovery’s sickbay, re-assessing everything; for their ship; for Starfleet.

But she did not have to save her daughter. She did not have to be the sole being in Michael’s life who stepped in to save her precious, beautiful daughter from annihilation.

Michael lived.


End file.
